Office and Vista: Can't we give Microsoft some props? — Microsoft posts its best fiscal first quarter in years and Wall Street cheers. But the angst goes on. — Derrick Shields at SeekingAlpha asks how can Microsoft stay competitive. The common refrain: The days of Office and Vista are numbered.

Prism — Personal computing is currently in a state of transition. While traditionally users have interacted mostly with desktop applications, more and more of them are using web applications. But the latter often fit awkwardly into the document-centric interface of web browsers.

Nintendo rules out Wii price cut — TOKYO - Fresh off bumper earnings, Nintendo Co. ruled out a price cut for its smash-hit Wii video game console Friday and announced the company will being selling the Wii in China next year. — Profits at Nintendo have surged on the runaway success …

Fastest Growing Facebook Group Now Has A Million Members — Unfortunately, the fastest growing Facebook group ever is not a very spontaneous affair; it's part of a US presidential candidate's campaign. However, the results are quite astonishing. — Responding to Barack Obama's Facebook …

Student's Ad Gets a Remake, and Makes the Big Time — The idea that you do not have to be a professional to create a good commercial is becoming widespread, in a trend known as consumer-generated content. Leave it to Apple to — paraphrasing the company's old slogan a bit — think differently.

'Naughty' Facebook App Throws Real-World Parties — It turned the real-life sex-toy trade into a popular virtual diversion; now it's turning it back again. Naughty Gifts, one of the most used Facebook applications, is throwing a series of adult parties in the real world this week.

Oracle calls BEA's price 'impossibly high' — Oracle has rejected BEA Systems' proposed purchase price of $21 per share, calling it "impossibly high" for Oracle or any other company to pay. — In a letter to BEA's board dated Oct. 25, Oracle again urged the company to accept its offer of $17 per share …

MYSPACE LOVE$ FACEBOOK VALUE — If Facebook is worth $15 billion, then MySpace is worth $65 billion. — That's the take of RBC Capital Markets analyst David Bank, who applied the $357 Microsoft ascribed to each of Facebook's 42 million registered users in Wednesday's deal …

Microsoft now takes blame for WSUS update error — It changes story and apologizes, but angry admins say trust is broken — On the same day it tried to refute reports that enterprise customers' PCs were being force-fed the Windows XP desktop search tool, Microsoft Corp. did a turnabout and admitted it had messed up.

SearchMash, Now in Flash — SearchMash, Google's experimental site launched last year to test new user interfaces for search results, has a Flash version (requires IE/Firefox and Flash 9). The site uses tabs to let you seamlessly switch between different search engines: web search …

Senate OKs 7 more years of tax-free Net access, e-mail — Scarcely a week before an existing ban on Internet access taxes is set to expire, the U.S. Senate late on Thursday voted to let it live on for seven more years. — The compromise bill, which was approved by a voice vote …

Microsoft confirms PDF attacks, urges caution — In the wake of this week's malware attacks using rigged PDF files, Microsoft has updated its security advisory to stress that the underlying flaw — in the Windows operating system — is still not fixed. — The advisory, first issued on October 10 …

Merrill's Chief Is Said to Consider a Bid to Merge — Facing billions of dollars in losses from the subprime mortgage crisis, Merrill Lynch chairman and chief executive, E. Stanley O'Neal, floated the idea of a merger with a large bank, a foray that angered Merrill's board and could cost him his job …

The Pirate Bay To Bring Back OiNK — BOiNK will be a little different from OiNK. For instance, the tracker will be public and it will start out with a lot less torrents than OiNK had when it was raided. The success of BOiNK will mainly depend on the former OiNK community, who will be asked to upload their old OiNK torrents.

The Science Education Myth — Forget the conventional wisdom. U.S. schools are turning out more capable science and engineering grads than the job market can support — Political leaders, tech executives, and academics often claim that the U.S. is falling behind in math and science education.